Harare - Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Wednesday termed Barack Obama's ascension to the US presidency as a victory for the struggle for democracy in Africa.

"For those of us who are still in the trenches, fighting for change and democracy across the entire African continent, this is our victory," the party of longtime opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said in a statement on Obama's win.

The desire for change that swept Obama past the post was also the motor behind the MDC's fight against the "dictatorship" and "neo-fascism" of aging President Robert Mugabe, the party said.

Johannesburg - A crisis summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to discuss the nearly two-month impasse in Zimbabwe's power-sharing negotiations will be held this weekend in South Africa, the department of foreign affairs confirmed Tuesday.

"It (the summit) will be held Sunday in South Africa," foreign affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Asked if all 15 SADC members would be attending, Mamoepa said, "As far as we're aware, yes."

On the Zimbabwean side, "I'm sure all the political parties that are involved in the negotiations will be invited - (President Robert Mugabe's) Zanu-PF and the two (Movement for Democratic Change) MDC formations," he said.

Harare/Johannesburg - Most of the patients lay limp as corpses, on the ground in the open, some of them with their drip bags of saline solution suspended from tree branches. All 28 of them had been brought in during the day.

Flies hovered over a nearby overflowing garbage bin and there was a pool of vomit, almost certainly brimming with the cholera pathogen, near the entrance to the cholera isolation area.

Harare - Zimbabwe's gold mining industry, Africa's third biggest nine years ago, is on the brink of "total collapse" because the country's central bank refuses to pay for the gold it buys from the mines, the mines' representative body said Monday.

An angry statement issued by the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe accused the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) of "deliberately" ruining the industry.

New York - A UN General Assembly committee adopted Friday a draft arms trade treaty, the first step in efforts to control the sale of weapons around the world worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year, a British diplomat said.

The assembly's political committee, known as the First Committee, adopted 145-2 the draft treaty, which would go through more rounds of talks before a final vote by the 
192-nation assembly that would make it a binding treaty. The draft had been under negotiations for three years.

Johannesburg - The deadlocked negotiations between Zimbabwe's rival political leaders should focus on providing justice and relief to the victims of political violence - and not just politics, Amnesty International said Friday in Johannesburg.

Presenting a report on recent human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, the London-based rights watchdog pointed out that no one had been held accountable for the campaign of state-sponsored violence against opposition supporters in the wake of March elections.

Over 120 people were killed and thousands reportedly injured and displaced in attacks by ruling party militia and the military to avenge President Robert Mugabe's defeat by the Movement for Democratic Change.